


And The Trees Were Wrong

by StalwartNavigator (Fallwater023)



Series: Captain Marike [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Accents, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Humor, Giant Psychic Cats, I Tried, I apologize to the Swedish Finnish and Icelandic languages, I don't know military jargon, M/M, Military, Psychic Bond, Psychic Wolves, Stealth Crossover, Steve's life is the worst, World War II, Worldbuilding, badly-rendered dialect, for Iskryne anyway, glossary included
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallwater023/pseuds/StalwartNavigator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Steve wanted was to be a soldier. Not a guinea pig. Not a symbol. Not a hero. Not a freak of nature or an idiot in love. </p><p>The world has other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First of Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> In the grand tradition of Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, I slaughtered the Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, and Danish languages to come up with the alternate vocabulary for this universe. Glossary at the bottom. A timeline of this alternate history will be added as a separate work in the series, since it's too long for an end note :)

Basic is hell. This is true in any universe. Steve just struggles with it a little more than most. His lungs aren’t quite up to it, and his heart, and his back, and his knees and shoulders and, well, pretty much his everything. But he soldiers on. It’s just his way. 

The presence of the warthreat actually makes it easier - a blended wolf pack and cat pride is just jarring enough to his Brooklinn-raised catsense that he can focus on it consciously, slip a foot over the threshold to leave his aching body behind. It was never strong enough in the winding streets of Red Hook, far enough from the borough kottheall that Steve was left shivering and pain-maddened as he gasped for breath in an asthma attack or burned with fever. Nothing between him and Hel’s gate but his own body, and him feeling every inch of it in misery. 

So Basic was better than the winter he’d had whooping cough, or the winter after when he’d been down with rheumatic fever for a solid month and the housecarl told Buck there was just no hope for him. It was better. He held on to that thought. 

He held on to it when Agent Carter, with her sleek Briddoni brotherwolf and crisp accent, decked his bully of a tithemate. When the mysterious Dr. Erskine had no time to talk to a recruit. When he curled up in the bunk and listened to snores and lay awake for an hour because not one of them was the right snore. 

And then it was cub day. 

Camp Lehigh, Delaware, was a middling-small base if you didn’t count the extensive secret scientific installations. So they weren’t spoiled for choice from the elite military bloodlines, except when they were - and when they were, they were extremely secretive about it. So Steve and the other supersoldier candidates were to attend the public cub-choosing of the regular Lehigh trainees, from a batch of local military and state police cubs before heading downstairs for their _real_ bonding. It didn’t seem quite fair to Steve, that they might have an opportunity that all the other guys would miss, but none of the others complained about that so he kept quiet. They were to hang back at the public choosing, but not so far back as to inspire suspicion, and then to file away in the aftermath. This was part of their training, to work a crowd to their tactical advantage. 

On the packed earth of the denning arena, Steve found this a little harder to remember. They were absolutely surrounded with people, up in the stands, and the wolfmors were uneasily shifting their cubs about. It seemed like a stupid arrangement, and his catsense was keyed up enough to feel the mors’ wholehearted agreement. Stupid as it seemed, it was apparently effective - a good seventeen soldiers out of forty were winnowed out in the first ten minutes. Those who were obviously accepted were given another ten to visit with pups and mother before being shuffled along to make room - another ten out of the way. Steve and his squad were eight of the thirteen remaining. And then he screwed up. 

Well, to get technical about it the sentries screwed up, but who would honestly be watching the morpaths on cub day? It wasn’t like the kotturmors would tolerate a hostile on their trails, especially with such a concentration of baby creatures in the compound. So the sentries let their attention wander to more pressing concerns, and that was how she must have slipped in. 

She was massive, a good ten foot from nose to tailtip, which beat a hunting tattoo as she slunk around the ring. Her crest rose in the distinctive stippled ruff of a kotturmor, and her teeth were too clean to be a wildling, but unease still rippled through the crowd. Giving in to natural paranoia, the wolfmors stood over their broods and bristled. But her gaze slid over them dismissively. Her attention was on the knot of soldier candidates against the arena wall.

Her attention was, in fact, on Private Steven Rogers. 

It was hard to keep greatcats in the military. Ancient instinct drove the females to wild solitude in their prime years. This one was probably born from a local heall, where she would expect to send her kittlinger when they came of age. Not to the wilds of the Europan front, still scarred from the Nordenwar. This didn’t seem to matter to her, because she stalked right up to Steve and stared him in the face with those golden eyes - then butted her head against his chest in an unmistakable gesture. Rather than step back and wait for him to follow her, she circled around behind him and crowded up against his back, driving him forward. With a trapped and helpless look at Colonel Philips and Agent Carter, Steve obediently walked out of the arena. 

The kotturmor shoved him a good fifty yards up the mortrail into the woods before she saw fit to lead him instead of driving him. “You know,” he gasped out as they hiked deeper into the mountainous forest, “I don’t usually go dancing with a pretty dame...without being introduced.” 

The look she threw him over her shoulder was equal amounts pity, disdain and vicious humor. He felt a tickle in the catsense, but nothing of substance. 

“Alright, then,” Steve shrugged and concentrated on his breathing. 

Another five hundred yards, and he had to take a break, leaning against a stump to catch his breath. She kept on going, out of sight, then doubled back and into his personal space. Her head was large and solid and warm, thumping against his chest to listen. She chuffed authoritatively, then opened those - immense - jaws. Paralyzed with sudden second thoughts about following an apex predator into the woods, Steve watched as she closed her mouth around his hand. Like in a dream - some kinda dream, more like a weird nightmare - it didn’t actually hurt. Tugging gentle but firm - oh, and there was the pain, a flirting threat of sharpness against his fragile skin - she led him off the mortrail and into the trackless underbrush. 

A few hundred feet away from the trail, she stopped at a logfall and butted the log with her head. Then she backed up a few paces and sat, with a definite air of waiting about her. Steve waited, too, as she looked pointedly back and forth between him and the log. 

“Look, I’m sorry, ma’am,” he coughed, and trailed off into a little storm of coughing as he realized the dryness of his throat, then recovered “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here, I don’t know where we’re going or why you chose me, I don’t even know your name. I’m supposed to be a half-mile away from here, back at base, getting rejected by a top-shelf batch of military pups and kicked out of Erskine’s fucking supersoldier program, and I don’t even know what they’re going to decide to do with me if I bond to a kitt, god only knows how they’re going to handle kittlinger training for me, the Nazis are killing people in Europa _now_ and they need people on the Hungarian front, let alone what’s happening in the Flemish states, and, and I haven’t heard from Bucky in a month, he was deployed to the front nine weeks ago, he’s - Bucky, he’s my best friend and the only family I have left, I, if I - if he - ,” and god, he was crying now, like a snot-nosed kid again waiting for Buck to come chase off the bullies, but Bucky wasn’t here, and everything was horrible. 

He lost a few minutes there, but came to his senses after a bit. It was weird. He spent all this time bottling up his worry about Bucky and his anger at the Army and his fear of his tithemates, months and months, and all it took was a couple of minutes crouched on the forest floor in the middle of nowhere to get it all off his chest. When he came back to the moment, the kotturmor was there, as in _right there_ , about two inches from his face. She regarded him solemnly, and he abruptly felt as ridiculous as it’s possible to feel in the face of a 300-pound bear-eating cat. 

“Sorry,” Steve muttered again, and she projected through the cat-sense an air of amused, sympathetic tolerance. Then she licked his face, one giant painful swipe that replaced the tears and snot with kotturmor spit. It stung in the newly-opened tongue scratches. He yelped, shoved her face away, and she chuffed, cuffing him softly with a heavy paw. Then she rolled to her full height and planted herself again in front of the log. She looked at him, at the log, at him. “Look,” he said, feeling ridiculous again for arguing with a 300-pound bear-eating cat in the middle of the woods, “This charades thing still isn’t working,” and she gave him another pitying look and lifted one massive foreleg, gesturing in a graceful swipe at the log. 

Finally cottoning on, Steve crouched down next to the log and found the lid of a cache poking out from underneath. His mouth felt increasingly gummy as he dug and scraped and pried, but when he popped the lid of the cache and found a stack of bottled water, relief poured over him. That first gulp of water felt like heaven. 

The kotturmor waited patiently while he drained most of a bottle, then let him pick out a second one before getting antsy. Obedient, Steve lurched to his feet and fell in behind her, picking his way through the underbrush and back to the trail, where they settled into a loping jog. 

About twenty minutes later, the kotturmor settled back into a sedate walking pace, letting Steve huff and blow and look ridiculous again as they strolled up to the den entrance. 

He didn’t have to worry about that for long. Two fuzzy blurs rocketed out of the den at top speed, bowling their mother over. She went down willingly, amused-tolerance echoing again through the catsense. As they scrambled over her, Steve made out two of the most adorable creatures he’d ever seen in his life; brindled gold and brown, with stubby kitten faces and outsize paws. They were about three feet long, though one was definitely taller than the other; and when they turned to face Steve, he felt a frisson through the catsense. 

The kitts were much more open to him than their mother, and they wasted no time in frolicking over to his feet, clamoring in his head so loud that he would have sat down anyway. But a pair of ninety-pound kittens are not gentle playmates, and he hit the ground hard enough that his air left him in a whoosh. Gasping, kitts clambering on his chest, he spared a moment to reflect that it would be just plain hilarious if he made it this far to be killed by a pair of weanlings. 

“Hey-ey-ey! Geddoff him You, Scram! Let ‘im breathe!” 

Then he was being boosted up under the shoulders by a pair of big, rough woodsman hands, and a big, rough woodsman face came level with his own. “Y’all right there, boy? The kitts ain’t learnt any manners, but they’re usually better than that. Y’must be somethin’ special.” 

Gasping for breath, and grasping at straws for the proper way of going about this, Steve managed a wobbly salute. “Private Steven Rogers, sir. Fifth training battalion, alpha squad, Camp Lehigh.”

“At ease, soldier. Gods, I don’ get paid enough for this,” his rescuer groused, hoisting Steve the rest of the way up to his feet. “Awright, who’s your keeper, kid?” 

Steve hesitated, and the gruff man snapped his fingers in his face. “Look alive, kid! Your commanding officer, who is he?”

“Um, it’s complicated, sir. Our CO is Commander Philips, but his XO is Agent Carter, and she works a lot more with the men, and, um, Dr. Erskine is somewhere in there too…” He tailed off under the man’s scrutiny, and endured a moment of extreme awkwardness as the stranger leaned forward and sniffed. 

A thundercloud rolled in over his unshaven face. “White fuckin’ Christ, kid, _tell_ me you ain’t with the SSR.” 

The kotturmor looked up from washing her kitts and flattened her ears, nose wrinkling in the prelude to a snarl. The kitts stopped their squabbling, silently watching the three adults in the clearing for cues. 

“Well, technically, I’m not with the SSR yet. They, um, have to iron out Dr. Erskine’s procedure first - ,”

“Kid. Tell me. You didn’t volunteer. To be a fuckin’ SSR experiment.” 

“Um. Yes? Sir?”

The kotturmor loosed a yowling snarl, and pounced on Steve, rolling him head over heels to the edge of the clearing, where he fetched up against a rise in the ground. Her catsense presence struck him like a hammer. 

_You are NOT theirs, you are MINE, MINE, MY KITTLING, you stupid STUPID stupid kid!_

Now, it bears mentioning that cats don’t think like humans think. There’s some pretty intense whiplash from bonding to cats, but that makes it easier to translate to words. Steve caught only the barest echo of what the kotturmor wanted to tell him, roiling depths of pain and history and empty aching loss. But he got the gist - a stern refusal to let him get himself killed, or worse. A mental cuff around the head, and a reflection of how overwhelming she found his naive idiocy. 

“Great mother,” he whispered, worn down to exhaustion by this ridiculous day, “I’m dying.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He woke to the crackle of a fire. The difference of heat told him that sunset was drawing down, the air cooling as the night closed in. He tensed at a sound of metal sliding on metal. 

“The name’s Logan,” the kotturmor’s brother said, calmly, as though he wasn’t skinning a rabbit with a knife that was _part of his hand_. Horribly, impossibly, the man’s first two knuckles had opened to let a two-foot blade extend. He ignored Steve’s gawping with the ease of practice, laying the pelt aside and quartering the game. “I got a long history with the SSR. None of it’s pretty. The last time we tangled, I died and woke up with these.” 

“Oh.” Steve said dumbly. 

Logan let silence hang between them for a while, turning the meat over the flames. Then he sighed. “What’s this about you dyin’?”

“Um.” Steve cleared his throat, sitting up all the way. “It’s a bit of a long story.” 

“Try me,” Logan grinned, his knife - claw - thing retracting with an eerie _snikt_. He handed Steve a spitful of rabbit. 

The kotturmor rumbled soothingly behind him, and settled to the ground with a thump between her brother and her kittling-candidate. Steve let her immense silence steady him, and focused on the feel of her fur under his hand. “I, um, I’ve always been sick. Really sick. Ma had rheumatic fever right before I was born, and we both had pneumonia afterwards. The doc did his best, but. I’ve always had asthma, I’ve always been skinny and short and, and weak. I had whooping cough the winter I was twelve, and the rheumatic fever the next winter, and pneumonia again every winter since I was fifteen. My back is messed up, and my knees, and my shoulders ain’t much better. Doc says it’s a miracle I lived this long, I probably won’t make it to thirty. One bad winter and I’m through,” he took a steadying breath, and checked Logan’s face for signs that he should shut up. 

“Y’ain’t finished, kid, I can see that. Spit it out,” the man grumbled in what he probably thought was an encouraging way. 

Steve screwed up his face and blurted it out. “All I ever wanted was to be a soldier, I - my dad died in the Nordenwar, in Herria, and I, gods, I hate bullies, that’s all this stupid shit going on in Europa is, is bullies and pettiness, and. I never woulda lived this long if I hadn’t had Buck, he’s my best friend, they - he was drafted, shipped out months ago and I haven’t heard from him in weeks, he.” Steve brought himself to a stop, then made himself say it. “He’s probably dead, isn’t he.” 

Logan let the quietness speak for him. 

“Gods, he’s probably dead, and I, I never had a chance to be the one to save him. And what’ll I do without him to, to help with the rent and the medicine and food, shit, I’d starve if he were, were gone. I. I ain’t gonna live out the winter on my own. I know it. And if I were stronger, just a little stronger.” 

Another quietness. 

“I tried to enlist, the first week of the war. You know? There was this tiny little office for the whole of Brooklinn, and I went in and they sent me right back out. Then we entered officially, and recruiting offices popped up all over the place. So I tried again. Then I started lying about my name, and where I came from. Tried in Mannahattan, Konigens, Haarlem, coupla places up Delaware way. They just kept 4Fing me. Every time. Then I tried the night that Bucky left, and Dr. Erskine found me. Said the war was already being fought by big men. Mebbe what it needed was a little guy.” 

Logan tore off another bite of his rabbit, chewed, swallowed, then growled out, “So you’re a crazy death’s-door runt stuck on bein’ a hero. I see.” 

Steve curled up tighter, fisting his hand in the kotturmor’s fur, then releasing her and petting a soft apology when she twitched and rumbled. “Pretty much. Erskine, he’s working on something that, well. It’s hard to explain, his English isn’t perfect, and he gets a little weird about keepin’ it secret. Whatever it is, it’s supposed to make me stronger, healthier. To make me more of, uh, myself, I guess. Stark’s working on it too.” 

That must have been a mistake, because the greatcat’s rumble was clearer and louder this time, and Logan’s face twisted. “Stark, huh. I see how it is.” He spit out a lump of gristle, and continued. “Anybody tell you your odds on surviving this little mad science experiment?” 

“No, sir,” Steve admitted. 

“Don’ call me sir, I hunt for a living. Lemme tell you something about Stark, kid.” Logan leaned in, face grimmer than his usual resting grimness. “When it was me he had on the operating table, my chances were less than fifty-fifty. And that’s me we’re talkin’ about.” 

“...what makes you so special?” 

The kotturmor and Logan gave him identical pitying looks, and Logan extruded a blade-claw from one hand with an awful not-right noise. Quicker than Steve could work out his meaning, Logan cut a six-inch gash in his other forearm, laying flesh open to a bone that glinted unnaturally in the firelight. 

The young man tried and failed to stifle a yelp. “Are you crazy!? We gotta get you a, a doctor or some bandages or - ,” Logan held up his hand for quiet, and Steve shut up, watching with whale eyes as the blood pulsed, started flowing in the wrong direction, as the flesh drew back together and the cut shrank. Inside of a minute, Logan’s arm was whole again. 

“Dyin’ doesn’t stick on me, kid, gods only know why. But I died for a solid hour under that asshole’s scalpel, and he _didn’t care_. I _saw_ it in his eyes when I woke up. Like he’d failed because I wasn’t finally gone. Because he hadn’t been the one to end me.” Logan got up, tossed his spit into the fire, stretched. “I been around awhile, kid, seen some sick people. But there’s just somethin’ wrong with that bastard,” 

Steve shrugged, noncommittal. He hadn’t really liked Stark on sight, but he hadn’t hated him, either. The man was proud, sure, had the kind of confidence that rubbed some people the wrong way. But he hadn’t really gotten close enough to feel him out with the catsense for the kind of wrongness that Logan meant. 

“Anyway, crazy or not, Eve seems to like you. Or at least she thinks you’re a good pick for the kitts. So here’s how this thing works. You stick with the kitts all day, every day, and you do what they do and see what they see. You’ll hang out until the kitts make a choice. It could take awhile, it could happen right away. Depends on you and them. Meantime, I’ll be patrolling, and so will my sister. When the kitts settle, we’ll bring you out on patrol for a coupla weeks, then run down to Camp Lehigh to check in.”

“Can’t I send a message or something? Only they’ll be looking for me,” Steve amends at Logan’s thunderous look. 

“Kid, you couldn’t get us anywhere near SSR for love or money, not with kitts in the den. Bad enough we have to return you at some point.”

“What about radio?” Steve retorted, and Logan aimed the Look of Longsuffering Pity his way once again. 

“It look to you like we have a radio out here, your highness?” He growled, waving a hand at the den. Steve let silence fall, studying the dust between his feet. Probably for the best, he reflected, they could choose the actual best candidate now and not just the Doc’s pet, the one everybody felt sorry for. 

Logan let the silence alone too, but it swelled and pressed on them both until he popped it with an aggrieved sigh. “Alright, yeah, fine, there’s an outcamp of the local morpride, they keep it up for brooders, they’ve got an old cat’s-whisker crystal setup there. We’re checking in with the sprechend next Wothensday, you can call home then,” 

Steve held in his protest - AWOL for five whole days! - but something must have shown on his face. Logan raised one bristly eyebrow, then cuffed him on the head with the same heavy hand as his sister. “Don’ argue, kid. Finish your dinner and bunk down, the kitts are already asleep.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days later, Steve’s nerves had all but cracked. By now, he’d been gone long enough to be dishonorably discharged as penalty on his return, unless he turned up with a damn good reason for his absence - even then, with the weight of Logan as his farsprechend and a kitt by his side, he might be seriously disciplined, demoted, removed from the program. 

At least he had Eve. The cat, literally psychic, took every turn of his mind toward his impending military doom as a cue to pin him and wash his face and head until he surrendered. Now, he had a near-permanent burn over his cheekbones from kotturmor washing - if he didn’t get a lotion on them at some point, they’d heal over into the distinctive scars most kittlinger had. They faded in the years after leaving their kotturmor, but some small evidence always remained. Patchy as his beard had always been, it might refuse to grow at all now. It was a wonder Logan could grow those bushy sideburns, although his healing thing might have prevented scars. And Steve seriously doubted Logan had come by Eve in the traditional way. 

Whenever he plucked up the courage to pester Logan about his past, he got another cuff round the head and an admonishment to turn his attention to the kitts. Logan called them You and Scram; kitts never had names until they bonded, and Logan figured his names for them were both accurate and sufficient. Scram was the nuisance, always poking his nose where he shouldn’t and getting underfoot. You was the creepy one, watching silently from a distance and retreating whenever friendly overtures were made in her direction. Steve was fine with this personality difference - You and Eve were lovely, yes, but the partners of she-cats simply couldn’t be a part of a military command structure. When You was a grown cat of an age to breed, she would stick around long enough to do the deed, then take off into the woods and den up with her kitts. Then she’d cycle four years on, four years off, joining other kotturmor in her off-cycles to form the wild morpride. The solitude seemed to suit Logan, but Steve wouldn’t give up the Army for anything now that he had it. 

So he kept a friendly distance with You and cuddled Scram whenever it was demanded, playfighting with him, real-fighting him for choice bits of lunch (too much indulgence was bad for a bond, Logan kept saying with a gimlet eye to Steve’s plate). Eve watched them benevolently, and as Steve and Scram’s bonding channel began to open up she deigned to ‘speak’ to him more often. Logan still had to translate some difficult concepts, but Steve managed to struggle through the first eight generations of her lineage himself. He didn’t envy You’s eventual brother (or sister, but she-cats rarely took to female bondmates), who would have to learn the whole thing back to the Markland. 

Over Sonnesday dinner (the weirdest Sonnesday dinner he’d ever had, but not the most terrifying), he plucked up the courage to ask “When’s You getting a kittling?”

Logan shrugged. “Not my problem, kid, this one’s up to Eve. Her line’s prone to picking she-kitts later in life.” 

“It’s a family thing?” Logan chuckled at this, nodding. 

“Yeah, you could say that. Fifty-nine generations, and most all of Eve’s female ancestors bonded late.” 

“Uh, speaking of weaning - ,” Steve started, then stopped. He took another stab at it, “When I, uh, when will I…”

“Kid,” Logan stood, and Steve shrank back a little. “Cat time works different than human time. I told you, next Wothensday you kin go call mommy and get your military shit squared away. After that, we play by ear. Your brother sure acts like a kid’s toy, but he ain’t - you gotta listen to him on this one.” Scram chewed industriously at Steve’s knee, as if to punctuate the point. Steve turned his attention back to the adorable little tyrant who’d hijacked his life, humming a little catmarch under his breath as he finger-combed through the fluffy kitt fur. 

Well, with Hitler pushing deeper into Polska and eyeing up the south and west of Europa, the war would come soon enough for them. He couldn’t exactly go charging onto the battlefield with a little fluffball bouncing along behind him. Here at the fire with his kotturmor and farsprechend and his catbrother, the world turning around them outside the little circle of light - that was enough for him. 

For now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve takes a tour of his self-esteem issues and Erskine doesn't die (doesn't die, dammit! I'll figure something out!). Also, nobody in the cast is really Christian in this AU but Steve is clueless sometimes. Jesus this is a big chapter. Here, have a monster chapter.

Anticipation did not make it any easier to hear Philips vetoing his lifelong dream. Steve sat in the hard wooden “hot seat” in the colonel’s office, hearing Logan and Philips growl back and forth at each other while Carter spoke at increasingly strident volume. Scram - no, no, _Robin_ , had to remember his new name - leaned up against his legs. You had, wonder of wonders, infected her brother with a bout of quiet watchfulness. Half-joking, Steve brushed over Robin’s mind in a mimic of a medic searching for injuries. Robin mentally batted him away, looking up and chuffing in imitation of his long-suffering mother.

Like falling asleep, it happened slowly and then all at once. One hour he was lazing in the sun with Scram, batting idly at cottonwood fluff drifting on the breeze - and the next he was fifty miles out in the woods, him and Scram - not Scram, _red-flashing-underbrush feathery-scent_ \- looking for Eve to tell her _\- mother mother I did it! I did it! He’s mine! -_

And now he was Robin’s and Robin was his, and it _hurt_ like fire to think that something might take them apart from each other. You’d have to be crazy to split a kittling pair when a mor supported them, but there were cases when the mor’s judgement had turned out to be wrong, cases where one partner hurt the other. And in those cases there was a way to end it. Hurt like hell, but at the end you could get away with almost half your soul, which was usually close enough for most people. 

Of course, Steve never could guess how things were going to go in the SSR. He got the impression from the other recruits that actual Army life wasn’t quite as weird as this. 

“Rogers,” he looked up to see Agent Carter standing over him. “Go see Dr. Erskine, he needs to make a reassessment.” Was it wishful thinking to see sympathy in her eyes? She probably felt sorry for him, pathetic little charity-case recruit getting himself kicked out. Or court-martialed. Or worse. “Rogers!” 

Alright, now she was annoyed. “Get moving!” she barked, breezing past him out the door on an errand of her own, her brother Tristan at her heels. 

XXX

“Well, now, young lad,” Erskine addresses Robin directly, his accent slipping into a stronger German lilt, “Let us see what we can see of you, eh?”

Aside from the triumph of obtaining proper health data so early in Robin’s kitthood, Erskine explained as he weighed and measured Steve’s catbrother, it was a great benefit to have data both pre- and post-bonding in a health case as extreme as his. He then proceeded to weigh and measure Steve. The bondpair were prodded, examined, endured blood drawing and cheek swabs. All the while, Erskine kept up an oddly soothing, grounding chatter. 

That might be what he missed most about being pitched out of the Army - the loss of the chance to know this strange man and his razor-sharp mind. Erskine had a deep kindness behind his keen wit. That was rare. 

“There,” Erskine sighed as he sealed the last of the phials. “You know, they will not let you go as easy as that, Steven,” he said casually over his shoulder, going about his shelving and refrigerating as though he hadn’t dropped a shrapnel bomb into Steve’s half-built shell of resignation and shame. “You have a brother now, and we are not so spoiled for untethered kotturbrethren as to dismiss one out of hand. And a successfully bonded soldier is crucial to the serum - you do know that none of the others have bonded? Of course not, how would you have heard. That is what the Colonel receives when he gives me bullies to work with. Not all men are possessed of your character, Steven.” 

“But…” Words failed Steve for a moment, and then he rallied, “Dr. Erskine, sir, with all respect, you know exactly what’s wrong with me. All the things that are wrong with me, from my lungs on down.”

“Bah, that is what we have serum for, yes? Yes, it would be best, I think, to start your brother on the companion form; I shall finish manufacture of the pills tonight and have them ready for you at noonmeal tomorrow. For now, he can be given a primer shot before the night’s rest, and report to the lab tomorrow morning for the beginning of Stark’s half of the procedure. It is of course necessary that your brother’s part be taken at a more stately pace - in deference to his age and his less advanced brain. Too much too soon, ah, he would not withstand the strain. It cannot be so with you, you understand, the serum requires a certain degree of, ah, strain for full potency in human subjects. But this lad, if we start him immediately he should have time to grow into the full effect. Yes, he will be magnificent. Shall I commence?” 

Steve consulted with Robin, then nodded. Erskine prepared the needle and went about injecting a curious blue liquid into Robin’s shoulder muscle, talking on all the while. “Steven, you must keep him very strictly to the schedule. A month of the pills and the shots and the morning sessions with Stark, and another month of the pills and sessions, and another month of the pills, and the transition should be complete. He will find them unpleasant on an empty stomach; the pill can be swallowed with just water, one at every noonmeal and every nightmeal, but give him a portion and a half of red meat or game with it. And greens, he will crave greens, do ask your kotturmor for the food plants and the poison plants, yes? No hay or oats, you understand, but milk if it can be had, or watered cream, and if there is no milk then boil the bones of his meat and let him drink the juice, and before you leave with your kotturmor see me and I shall give you some dietary supplements and instructions for administering them in truly dire straits. Ach, you should be safely in a laboratory and not carrying on out here!”

Erskine sighed and shook his head, then soldiered on. “It cannot be helped. His diet will need to change each month, but I can consult with you, and give you instructions when you go. For now, give him a light nightmeal before he sleeps, and milk and meat and whatever greens he may crave from your rations; the kitchen staff will know to give you what you need. Don’t let anybody issue you those awful standard cat-rations. Too much horse-food, not enough cat-food! All this oat and barley nonsense. Cheap, yes. Filling, yes. Travels well, yes. But proper food for a cat? No! No, let him hunt mice as you train - he has the look of a mighty mouse-killer, eh, boy? - and let him graze in the wood. A good balanced diet.”

“Dr. Erskine, I - is the SSR keeping me, or sending me out to train with Logan?” Steve hardly dared to hope. But if there was any chance…

Erskine’s eyebrows rose over his glasses, and he patted Robin firmly to signal the end of his injection, rising and sweeping out. “Both.” 

XXX

By the end of the week, someone had finally gotten around to telling Steve what Erskine meant. 

He was to continue his training at Lehigh, the other candidates having been dismissed. Truly, he was only at the Camp so Erskine would have easy access to both Steve and his lab. Well, and Robin, who turned out to be the one needing the most work. Steve had been anxious that first morning, watching Robin as he was closed up in a metal box and Stark fiddled and pushed dials and light glowed and Robin whimpered. And then it was over, and Robin turned out to not have minded it so much. Only he was about hungry enough to eat a horse. 

So Steve took him out of the lab, into the sun, and fed him. His mind was eased by leaving that shadowy place. And was it his mind that put a greedy gleam in Stark’s eye as he watched kitt and kittlinger? Surely Logan’s distrust of the man was getting to him.

Stark had never given Steve a reason to distrust him. He just needed to remember that. But if Logan could be believed, the man had given him six very good reasons to kill him on sight. 

It might be the companion-form of the transformation that was giving him these strange, grim thoughts. Robin was already showing some changes, growing faster than Logan said was normal for a kitt. Logan had said “normal” in a funny voice, and through the catsense which was sharpening every day, Steve could feel the man’s layered responses. He had a running joke with Eve about being “normal”, so that added a layer of bitter humor atop his kotturfar’s fear, pain, anger, and self-loathing. 

Logan was probably the most complicated man Steve had ever met. The Doc’s mind paled in comparison to the maze of his farsprechend’s head. But it seemed to work for Logan and Eve, so who was Steve to point fingers? 

XXX

Stark had never given Steve a reason to distrust him. So the soldier wasn’t sure why he was keeping an eye on the scientist. 

Fine, part of it was Peggy, and not trusting Stark with her safety as far as he could throw either of them. Peggy would beat him up if he ever said so. Hell, she would beat up _Stark_ if anything happened. And Tristan would never stand for a suspicious person around his bondmate, so if there were any unaccountable smells on Stark’s person or creepy behavior, the man would find himself short a finger or two. 

Still, he didn’t like it. Probably that damn serum coming through the bond. Robin had been unusually relaxed and easygoing, but now the normal aggression of a kitt was starting to show through. Hard to say if it was the serum or the move out of the forest, but Steve would lay good odds on the serum. 

So here he was on an otherwise nice evening, keeping one eye on Robin rolling in the bushes outside the science building, another on the door, one ear on his surroundings and the other on Stark and Peggy’s conversation. Something about Tristan’s littermates, which was weird because wouldn’t they be placed already, in the Briddoni army? She might be worried about them being sent to the battlefield, but that was part and parcel of life in the wermaegth. It wasn’t like Peggy to kick up a fuss about anything. From what he’d seen of her so far, the lady agent was tougher than most hardened war veterans and twice as prickly. 

Stark had never given Steve a reason to distrust him. But here he was. 

“Lovely night, yes?” 

And _that_ wasn’t Peggy, Stark, _or_ Robin. _Great_. 

Erskine leaned serenely against the wall next to him, fishing in his coat pocket for a cigarette. “Care for a smoke?”

Cigarettes had always made Steve’s cough worse instead of better, so the doctors had finally given up in disgust. He shook his head, and Erskine pocketed the pack and lit up. 

The smell had never been associated with good things for Steve either, just scared nights hoping the next puff would stop his choking fit. Bucky had never liked them either, said the smell made him remember sitting up late with Steve in a fever. It was weird to have those crowded-apartment memories bubble up here, where the air smelled like trees more than crowded humans, and the stars could be seen at night. But it was good to see Bucky’s face again in his memory, faded around the edges but printed on his mind. 

He’d never understood pulp novels where the heroine threw a fit about forgetting her fella’s face, or her long-lost parent’s, or something. He couldn’t forget Buck if he tried. 

Dammit, Doc always made him think of Bucky. Maybe because they’d met the night before his best friend shipped out, Erskine’s clipped accent bound up with Bucky’s Brooklinn drawl. 

“Why were you in a recruitment office, anyway? I don’t think you’ve even left base once since I got here.” 

“Yes, the generals get nervous about me wandering,” Erskine grinned, “They even want that I should have a, what, a bodyguarder, here on the base. I was there, Steven, because it is one thing to ask for good men and another to find them. You may have noticed.”

Steve shrugged, “I only ever needed the one,” _And now he’s gone,_ he didn’t say. But then Erskine already knew that, and he nodded wisely, blowing out a puff of smoke. 

“And so did I,” And at that Steve had to laugh and shake his head. 

“Nah, I’m no hero. For that you want one of the boys up on Union Street, or - ,” Erskine calmly puffed smoke in his face. While Steve was hacking and spluttering, Erskine leveled his cigarette at him. 

“You are _not_ a hero, Steven. War has no heroes. Only good soldiers, and this war will not won by good soldiers. It will be won,” He paused and took another drag, letting the smoke slip between his teeth as he spoke, “By good men. Men who can be good with or without orders. Men who can be good in their work, men who can be good to people, men who can be good to themselves.” He glanced meaningfully at Steve. “That has always been your weakness, Steven.” 

Steve looked down, flustered. What did it matter if he was ‘good to himself’ or not? Wasn’t like it would put food on the table or Hitler in a coffin or Bucky on a ship back home. 

He must have muttered that under his breath, by Doc’s leveled glare. 

“Steven, would your Robin blame himself for any of your failures? And, were he to be made unable to fight, blame himself for the death of other greatcats in Europa?” 

“No!” Robin was such a baby, he could barely be responsible for his own misbehavior, let alone Steve’s laundry list of failings. Steve didn’t want that sort of thought even _touching_ his brother. 

“Would Eve blame herself for the death of kitts and kittlingur in Hitler’s army and at SS hands? Would You blame herself for the horrors his scientists visit on their kotturmor?” 

“But they’re cats!” Steve blurted, “It’s different for them. That’s why we’re partnered, so we can take responsibility.” 

“And that partnership is not faced in one direction! Steven!” Erskine barked, making Steve jump at the explosion of pent-up annoyance. “Have you learned nothing from Robin? Hm? Not one valuable lesson?” 

Steve ducked his head, and Erskine took another pull on his smoke. “You are aware,” he said, casually, “That Robin’s value does not begin and end as a soldier? That his purpose is not merely to let you fight?” 

It was like a slap to the face. For a moment, the soldier groped for words. “I - I would never!” He spluttered, “He - I - !” How, _how_ could he ever think that of his own brother, closer to him even than Bucky? 

And that was part of the question, wasn’t it? Buck was gone, and Steve was adrift, and here Robin was. A new anchor. It was a disservice to take on a greatcat simply as replacement for his best friend, and he knew it. You knew it - she was the more sensible of the kitts - so she’d never taken to him. But sweet little Robin with his sunny nature and his fierce territoriality. He wouldn’t know deception if it bit him on the nose. 

He’d never forgive himself if he got Robin killed in Europa. But he couldn’t stay away, and they were bound together now closer than anyone could sunder. How could he ever go back to living in the cramped Red Hook apartment with Bucky in the other cot grousing about his snores? Bucky couldn’t go back, for sure; he’d been posted to a wolf regiment, and if he hadn’t bonded by the time they shipped out he would bond to a wolf-widow in Europa and come home with a brother their local kottheall would never tolerate. Brooklinn had been kind to her native sons, but a retired war-wolf would only be asking for trouble in the biggest kotturhold on the continent. 

They could never go back, and Steve could only admit that to himself now, under a window on a secret military base with his doctor calmly smoking next to him. 

If he couldn’t have the only peace he’d ever known, what the hell was he fighting for?

“For him, Steven,” Doc said softly, and Steve hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud. Damn. “For your brother here, and your brother over the sea, and for the end of the war that separates you. For peace in your days, and the days of your children and grandchildren, God willing.” He hadn’t known Doc was a Christian. It made sense, he supposed, the Berglands had been part of Romana long ago. “You are small creatures yet, you and your brother. You know what it is to be weak. That is what this war needs.” 

Doc stood, clapped Steve on the shoulder. Steve watched him wander off into the night. 

He still had no idea what Doc meant. 

XXX

It wasn’t right to waste food. 

Doc was about as clear as mud when he was making weird ominous statements about Steve’s purpose in life, but on one point he was perfectly clear: standard rations would _not_ do for the subject of his serum. 

He had made this abundantly clear to every person on the base, from the Colonel on down to the lowest dishwasher and errand boy in the mess kitchen. 

Most of them were perfectly happy to comply; the head cook was the wife of a General, and many of the other cooks and kitchen staff were military spouses or widows or daughters eager to do their part and happy to spoil a young kitt. Yet Steve felt an uncomfortable pinch somewhere between his chest and his belly when he got an extra plate for Robin loaded up with meat and milk. 

Even before the rationing, Steve had not grown up in a household bursting with food. Ma’s work as a nurse kept them in clothes and under a roof, but the roof was shared with the Barneses and the clothes bought secondhand from the Delaneys, and most meals featured soup and potatoes. Full bellies were for Yule and Beltane, and the rest of the year the children of Red Hook made do. They had schemed to steal sweets from the corner stores out of very real hunger. 

Here he was, a soldier and a grown man, asking at the kitchen door for a third helping of rationed food because his cat was hungry. He hesitated - looked down at Robin, who gave him a pulse of _redmeat-hollow-hollowbelly-food!_ \- back to the closed door, back to Robin. Sighed. 

It wasn’t right to waste food. But his brother was hungry, and growing faster than any catbrother should. 

“What’re you doin’?” Steve didn’t yelp, nor did he jump. He did startle a bit, and turned very quickly to check that yes, that was indeed Stark leaning against the mess wall, watching him fail to knock on a door. 

“Nothing, I - well, Robin’s hungry,” his manners got the better of him, and it was the truth. “I just - ,” Steve looked at the door, then Stark, and shrugged. 

“ _Oh._ Shy, huh? No problem!” Stark chirped, and Steve was still trying to blurt out “I’m not _shy!”_ when Stark popped open the door and slipped into the building. 

Steve was at a loss for words. 

Sure enough, Stark was back shortly with a little tub of raw ground beef, fresh from the freezer. “Sorry I couldn’t get a thawed one for you,” Stark looked _pleased_ with himself, it was a _crime_ to steal, “I thought they’d miss one out of the back of the freezer less,” and from a _military base kitchen_ \- “Here,” 

Naturally, Steve fumbled the catch. 

“Nice reflexes there, supersoldier,” and Stark glided past him in that annoying way, and Steve just managed to blurt out, 

“Really, Stark? _Stolen food?”_

It’s probably best not to dwell on what happened next. By the time the scene was over, Steve had ruined Stark’s stupid suit with the beef and Robin had pissed on Stark’s stupid shiny leather shoes. At least Robin had licked up the fallen beef afterwards. 

It wasn’t right to waste food. 

XXX

Steve wasn’t sure if he felt like a diva on opening night or the fatted calf being led to slaughter in the Christian stories. 

Doc told him he was being melodramatic when he said so. 

Steve figured he needed a better confidant than the mad scientist who was about to make him the first subject of an untested medical procedure. Then again, if anyone was the ‘mad scientist’ around here it was Stark, he figured. The man even looked the part in a lab coat and a pair of well-worn goggles, thick rubber gloves at the ready to handle his elaborate machines. Erskine’s medical people might be everywhere, and Erskine himself might be the final word in this room, but they were very much in Stark’s territory right now. The man had spent the better part of a year just assembling this room from blueprints it had taken him month after month to draft. 

At the center of the room stood the monument to Stark’s labors, a giant metal bed where Steve would be transformed into Erskine’s perfect soldier, the “good man” who would win this war. 

Sitting on the bed to heel off his boots, Steve noticed that somebody had laid down the familiar paper sheets of a doctor’s office bed. Thoughtful of them. 

“Now Steven,” Erskine’s voice pulled him from his reflections, “Roll up your sleeve.” He obeyed, and watched with undisguised fascination as a minion took an ordinary-looking syringe to his shoulder. 

Such a tiny thing to pin the hope of the war on. He had vaguely expected it to be a bigger needle, or to at least glow or something. One tiny needleful, hell, you could line up a bunch of soldiers and stick them all at once, mass-produce the perfect human weapon for the next level of war. How desperately would nations and great powers want this one little needle, he reflected, did they already know about this? Were schemes already at play to steal the formula? Surely it would seem as absurd to the leaders of the world as it seemed to Steve, that one tiny needle could change the world. 

“That’s it?” 

“That was penicillin.”

“Oh.” 

Steve decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the procedure. 

“Shirt off, Steven, and lie down.” 

Robin whimpered at the sudden spike in Steve’s nerves, raising his head from where he was securely fastened in the corner. Stark had built a harness that should hold a young greatcat, even an enhanced one, through whatever would happen to Steve. And that was really not helping his nerves, thinking that his Robin was at the mercy of Stark. He barely heard the directions of the staff, though his feet obediently braced against the weird footrest and he carefully squared up to the center of the bed. 

Deep breaths. Remember the woods. Logan had told him to think of wilderness scenes when trying to calm Robin, of deep open woods where Robin could bound from log to branch to freely breathing earth and run out his worries. He felt Robin relaxing muscle by bulging muscle, strong enough already to dent unwary doorframes when playing his infuriating games of catch-as-catch-can with Steve. Games, yes, think of games and fun and free movement, the little breezes in his guardhairs from cutting sharp turns in the endless maze of the SSR. 

“Gentlemen,” Erskine was saying to the audience. Wonderful. Steve had only just managed to forget that five Generals, the Secretary of Defense, and gods knew who all else were watching him be experimented on. This operating theater was quite literally a theater. He turned out the rest of the speech - something about annihilation and peace, and some technical details he was really wishing he hadn’t heard. _What the hell are Vita-Rays? And does anybody care that I don’t know?_ At least the actual serum was blue and came in a science-fiction sort of harness. 

And now Erskine was counting down and his breath was speeding up, Robin had been sedated as much as his enhanced body would take sedation but he was still rumbling a little, Steve couldn’t grasp his image of the free open woods anymore - Erskine’s hand was on his shoulder, the only warm and solid presence in the room - and ow ow ow ow ow ow ow 

Okay, that was over - and now the weird footrest was coming in handy because the bed was moving under him, tilting him upright and closing in around him - _oh shit it’s a coffin, it’s an actual moving robot coffin like out of the funny pages._ There were muffled voices outside the coffin - _my coffin_ \- and Steve clung to Robin now, clung to him like a lifeline, like he was the kitt and Robin was his only ally and defender in a world he didn’t understand. 

And then everything was red and orange and white and _ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit ow_

XXX

He’s not sure how much time he lost in that coffin. But when he came back to himself, the world had changed around him. 

The first thing he noticed was the lack of pain. 

Pain had been a constant companion. His whole life, something ached or twinged or stabbed through him with pain: his lungs, his back, his knees, his feet, his hands, his head, his gut, his heart. He couldn’t remember a life without it. Now, it felt absurdly light - like being taken out of a suit of armor that he hadn’t realized he was wearing, and now he could dance - really dance all night, the way Bucky loved to do. 

The second thing was the noise. There seemed to be a lot of it, shouting, and running footsteps and the whine of the cooling engines around him, the blare of an alarm and the yowls of his bondmate -

_Robin_ was the third thing he noticed, his Robin, his other self - 

with a shuddering gasp, he was back in his own skin. That had been weird even by the standards of this very weird day. For the space of a breath, he had been in the skin of his catbrother, he had been the coiled strength and the strange prickle of fur brushed the wrong way by metal restraints. 

Robin had been angry, and scared, and sad that Steve had hurt, but mostly angry that there was a traitor in the little pride of watching humans. 

And then Steve was aware of everything, and his new body could move _very_ fast. 

XXX

The hair-trigger reflexes of his new body saved his life. Erskine was not so lucky. The bullet that ricocheted off the headrest of the coffin when Steve dodged had gone into the doctor’s gut, and the man was losing blood fast. 

This man who had seen something in him, who had _seen him,_ was dying. 

There was nothing he could do. 

In a daze, Steve shoved his way past the cowering assistants and slammed the retreating assassin up against the door of the operating theater. It was a very solid door, cast iron by the looks of it, and he shoved the assassin a bit harder than he meant to. 

At least the scum wasn’t going anywhere. He left the man lying there for Peggy to take care of - she was the only person in the room who wasn’t wringing her hands or shouting, he figured she had a grip on the situation. 

Still not really thinking, he went over to Robin and grabbed the iron shell around his catbrother, prying it open. He’s not sure how he pushed through the knot of people around Erskine, but he reached the doctor’s side in time to see him pull out a vial and drink the contents. 

Steve was numb. He didn’t feel the shove of assistants against his shoulders or the weight of his brother against his side, the feeble tap of Erskine’s fingers against his chest - his heart, the heart that Erskine had made strong and steady - 

Steve could set a clock by his heartbeat. He could twist metal like newspaper, he could feel his brother’s every thought and the presence of cats and wolves for a half mile in every direction, he could hear the steady throb of blood seeping from Erskine’s corpse, slowing, slowing. Stopping. 

He could not save the life of his friend. 

XXX

Say what you will about Steve. Call him a softhearted tenderfoot no-hoper, a brainless hunk of meat, a crazy idiot, a freak of nature, a freak of science. Tell him that he’s got the smallest brain-to-action filter on the planet. 

But _this_ one was _not his fault._

It was actually Peggy’s, for once. 

Friday. Weird things kept happening to him on Fridays. Erskine turned his life upside down. Eve, Logan, and Robin turned his life upside down. The serum turned his life upside down again. He just couldn’t win. 

Friday. 

Robin had just finished one of his impossible growth spurts - he was nearly double the length of You, and putting on pounds of lean muscle where she still had kitt fluff. And by the looks of it he was well on his way to another. Steve was worried for the kitt’s skin. Robin just wasn’t slowing down long enough, so his fur kept falling out and regrowing in patches, the skin underneath showing stretch marks and peeling in places. 

He had made the mistake of telling his new attending doctor. That was on him. 

To be fair, he hadn’t anticipated the difficulty of restraining a hyperactive scientifically-enhanced _greased greatcat._

Normally Robin had a pretty good handle on his impulses. But he was still a kittling in so many ways, his stature belying the soft heart and distractible mind underneath. And Steve, newly huge, had only been a kittlingur for a month. He just didn’t have the handle on the bond that older kottwer did. 

So there he was, on Friday afternoon, chasing a greased greatcat down a bunker hallway. Robin had heard or smelled or maybe tasted something on the wind, and he was off like a shot. Steve wasn’t getting a lot of coherence through the bond, just a lot of happy eagerness and something like the sensation of cuddling with You after a long day of separation. 

“ROBIN!” He shouted, after several fruitless attempts to speak through the bond. He’d chased the kitt halfway across the camp and was at the end of his rope. 

His life was a punchline, right out of the funny pages, and he was sick of being the goofy sidekick who got into trouble. Wandering around restricted areas looking for his lost catbrother was probably not the best way to fix this. But what choice did he have, really?

Friday. Friday afternoon on a mostly-secret military base. It should have been quiet, productive, everything bustling along like normal. Deliveries came and went all the time, so he wasn’t very concerned when he came across several packing crates lurking in the hall. 

He _was_ concerned that one of them had been overturned and was ominously empty. The scratch marks on the crate looked suspiciously like kitt claws. 

“AaaaaauuguughghhhROBIN!” Steve was done with manly shouting and on to wailing. If Robin had eaten something meant for the science minions, he would have a field day explaining it to his attending doctor. Though now that he thought about it, this was the officer’s branch of the base, and the plaque on the door read _Agent M. Carter_

_What the hell would Peggy have shipped to her from -_ he checked the crate - _Briddon that Robin would be interested in? The rest of these just look like paperwork_. 

Steve examined the broken crate more closely. It had airholes. 

And now that he thought about it, it was the right size to hold a large animal, say, a dog or ape or perhaps - 

_oh shit_

Steve was running now, he didn’t see any blood spoor on the ground but there was no guarantee that even a scientifically enhanced greased greatcat could survive an encounter with a trellwolf. 

XXX

When he found the two of them, half-sick with worry and exhausted despite his enhancements, they were _cuddling_. 

Steve was not amused. 

Then again, his life was a punchline now. He really should have laughed when the wolf looked up at him and he felt a cascade of _flitterbrown-afternoon-brightopenwood-feather_ and a bone-deep sense of _mine._

**Author's Note:**

> The world can roughly be divided into those with bondcritters and those without. The bonded world can further be divided into the Westmaegth and the Eastmaegth, the critterbonded residents of the Neuewelt and of Europa, since they have a sort of cultural parallel/divergent evolution going on. 
> 
> The Westmaegth includes the Kottmaegth and the Westwolfmaegth (descended of the wolves brought over on the Harpasflor, this universe's Mayflower); the Eastmaegth includes the Wolfmaegth and a small population of imported greatcats with their bondmates. Like Monette & Bear’s canon, both the Eastmaegth and the Westmaegth make a distinction between their animal members and their human members, and when speaking exclusively of the human element they use the term ‘wermaegth’. Further distinctions can be made into ‘kottwer’ and ‘wolfwer’. 
> 
> Quick Glossary:
> 
> Kitt: Juvenile greatcat (from birth to first breeding, about three to four years depending on the individual and the gender)
> 
> Kittlinger: Human bondmate of a kitt.
> 
> Kottheall: Greatcat equivalent of a wolfheall, a geographically stationary settlement of adult and juvenile male greatcats and juvenile females, with their bondmates and auxiliary support personnel. Also refers to the pride of the same. 
> 
> Kottwer: Catch-all term for a greatcat bondmate
> 
> Kottjarl: Bondmate of an adult male greatcat who has engaged in open combat with other adult males of the kottheall and thereby won the right to lead the pride. Can jokingly refer to the greatcat in question and/or the temperament of a particularly "bossy" cat. 
> 
> Kotturmor: An adult female greatcat who has entered her breeding years; leaves the kottheall and raises her kitts in solitude, breeding in a four-years-on four-years-off cycle. 
> 
> Kotturfar/Farsprechend: Human bondmate of a kotturmor; kotturmor rarely bond to women, and the bondmate in either case takes on the duties of co-parenting kitts and kittlinger with their kotturmor for the extended childhood of their young. 
> 
> Morpride: In their off-cycles, kotturmor will join together to form geographically transitory hunting prides which patrol a particular area. This pride also traditionally serves as support for on-cycle kotturmor in their patrol range. 
> 
> Morsprechend: The human bondmate of a kotturmor who leads a morpride. 
> 
> Kotturkonigen: The extremely rare case in which a kotturmor outlives her breeding years; she retires to whichever local settlement/town/city/village needs their connection with the kottheall reinforced
> 
> Kottsprechend: Human bondmate of a kotturkonigen, liaises between kottheall and catless people. 
> 
> Kotturfridd: The political arrangement/compact/union of kottheall, morpride, and catless population, and the bond between these three facets of the Kotturfridd. 
> 
> Kottmaegth: Refers to all kottheall cats and their bondmates in the US.
> 
> Kottwer: Refers to specifically the human elements of the Kottmaegth
> 
> Kottmaegthing: Conference of all kottjarl, kottsprechend, and morsprechend in the Kottmaegth, called every eight years to coordinate morpride and heallpride, to discuss formation of new heallan and morprides, and to establish long- and short-term strategy against the bjornthreat and trellthreat
> 
> Warthreat: A blend of a wolf pack and a cat pride, established as a military unit. Viciously effective on the field of battle, also notoriously unstable.


End file.
